The Guest In-Room entertainment system is an interactive television based system that entertains modern day guests with features like High Fidelity Music, Movies, Internet radio, Internet access, Office applications and Guest messages and Alerts.

A typical In-Room entertainment system consists of the following:

Set Top Box (STB) running on any Real Time Embedded Operating System

TCP / IP connection to the server where the Media (music, movies etc.) is stored,

Interfaces with High Quality Televisions like Plasmas and LCDs using RS232 or TCP / IP communication with the screens

Remote Controls which are simple and user friendly

Wireless keyboard with mouse to use the internet and Office applications

Surround Sound by using High Fidelity 5.1 / 6.1 / 7.1 Audio systems to give the guest a home theatre effect

TCP/IP or Rs232 Serial communication interface to the Property Management System to transfer charges and get check in / checkout details

Interface with digital cameras of guests, music players or any USB memory devices etc.

The in-room equipment (STB) of this system has an aesthetically pleasing case, small form factor, noise free and generates minimum heat. The STB is maintenance free and enables to have the cost per room as low as possible.

Large screen Plasma or LCD are used as display units. A Plasma Display Panel (PDP) is a flat screen display panel with sizes starting from 32-inches. Many tiny cells located between two panels of glass hold an inert mixture of noble gases (neon and xenon). The gas in the cells is electrically turned into a plasma, which then excites phosphors to emit light. Since each pixel is lit individually, the image is very bright and has a wide viewing angle. Contrast ratios for plasma displays are often as high as 16,000:1. But plasma display units suffer from screen burn-in which is caused by prolonged display of a fixed text or image. This causes some parts of the display to loose their luminosity and become visible to the naked eye thus causing a burn-in effect.